


Witness Now This Trust

by the_rck



Series: Until It Has Been Witnessed [2]
Category: Chronicles of Amber - Roger Zelazny
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, College, Family, Friendship/Love, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-09
Updated: 2018-02-09
Packaged: 2019-03-15 15:27:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13616229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_rck/pseuds/the_rck
Summary: “So… Uncle or cousin?” Since he didn’t want to say it, I would.“Cousin.” The word was so quiet that I almost didn’t hear it. “And I did try to kill you a couple of times. I just… wasn’t very good at it. If I tried now, I might actually manage it.”He wasn’t looking at me, but I raised my eyebrows anyway. “Somebody’s still trying to kill me.” That was as close as I was going to get to saying he was lying about this, too.





	Witness Now This Trust

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Serenade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serenade/gifts).



> Title from "Possessions," a poem by Hart Crane.
> 
> Thanks to tigerbright for beta reading.

I suppose I should have guessed that Luke kissing me meant more than just him kissing me. I was too distracted by the parts right after that, our hands on each other, our clothing on the floor, both of us getting off far sooner than we really wanted because that meant being _done_ , and we weren’t ready for done.

At least, I wasn’t.

Afterward, Luke went to the kitchen for beer. What he brought back wasn’t what I’d had in my fridge. I’d expected him to say something cutting about drinking chilled Heineken, but he came back with steins-- which also didn’t come from my kitchen-- overfilled with some sort of artisanal homebrew that was actually strong enough for me to notice the alcohol.

I kept my face blank. Years of practice before I left the Courts had taught me that much. There was something nasty hiding inside Luke’s actions, nasty enough that he hadn’t told me before, nasty enough that he’d kissed me first because it might be good-bye. 

But apparently not quite nasty enough that he thought I’d hurt him over it. I let him see my wariness, but I accepted the beer that he didn’t quite offer me. If he’d poisoned one of the steins, I couldn’t tell which from how he held them, and usually, people have tells for that.

I downed about half of the stein he handed me. I checked for poison as I drank which really wasn’t what I’d expected to be doing after finally getting Luke up against the wall. Still, I wasn’t utterly stupid. Trust but verify.

He gave me a strange look when I lowered the stein and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand.

“What?” I said. “If you wanted me dead, you’ve had better opportunities.” Ten minutes before while we were in the middle of fucking, I’d been pretty damned vulnerable. Even if Luke wasn’t who I’d thought he was, I was pretty sure he’d have gone for breaking my neck over poison.

He started to laugh.

I just watched him and wondered how much the truth was going to hurt. I drank the rest of the beer while I mourned the loss of the simple friendship-- love rather-- that I’d thought we had. Even if his other secrets turned out to be trivial-- they wouldn’t, but even if-- he was kin on the Amber side, kin that Random didn’t know about. Random would have told Martin. Martin would have told me.

So… Best case, he was working for Caine who was a sufficiently paranoid son of a bitch to hide a son or daughter or even very much younger sibling to use as an agent and not tell anyone at all. Caine was entirely that sort of schemer.

When he finally stopped laughing, he drank his beer. “I wasn’t sure how to tell you,” he said at last. “Even if I-- I seduced you under false pretenses.”

“You think _that’s_ the part that’s the problem?” I wasn’t so much bothered by the intersection of close kin and sex as by the possible intersection of politics, betrayal, and sex. I’d been used enough for a lifetime. 

He looked away.

Yeah. That was what I’d thought. “So… Uncle or cousin?” Since he didn’t want to say it, I would. 

“Cousin.” The word was so quiet that I almost didn’t hear it. “And I did try to kill you a couple of times. I just… wasn’t very good at it. If I tried now, I might actually manage it.”

He wasn’t looking at me, but I raised my eyebrows anyway. “Somebody’s still trying to kill me.” That was as close as I was going to get to saying he was lying about this, too.

He glanced at me; I was pretty sure he was trying to gauge how likely I was to attack. Which meant that he wasn’t entirely stupid over this. He’d known I might. He’d also probably known me well enough to be sure I’d ask questions first if he didn’t attack me.

“If I was the sort of person to beat you bloody over this-- Well. I probably would have done something nasty before I knew.” Sons of Amber might make friends in Shadow. Lords of Chaos-- Merlin of Sawall might take a Shadow dweller as a pet.

There was a reason I prefered to affiliate with the Amber side of my family.

He didn’t look like my words were reassuring.

Good. He needed to remember that I might be dangerous.

I managed a laugh that was only half-forced. “I’d have gotten a hell of a surprise.” I looked down into my empty stein. “I’d have deserved it.” That didn’t mean I’d have lost the fight, just that it would have hurt.

“Pretty sure my mother still wants you dead,” he said. “She can’t find your father, and Caine is really fucking hard to get at.”

Which really narrowed down Luke’s parentage quite a lot. I sighed. Brand had really been the only likely option. Whether or not that was worse than Luke working for Caine… remained to be seen. “Do you know why I mostly stay in this Shadow?”

“Pretty sure it’s not nostalgia.” He had guesses; I could see that much.

“As long as Caine knows where to find me, he doesn’t start getting itchy about me trying to overthrow Random and murder everybody.” It was more complicated than that, but Luke really didn’t need those details. 

Caine and I had a personal arrangement. I told Aunt Flora where I’d be, and he didn’t murder me. Aunt Flora and I also had an arrangement. She thought Caine was being an ass. As long as I didn’t attract attention or do anything stupid, she’d cover for me. It was just easier all around if I mostly stayed where I was expected to be.

I sighed. “If your mother wants Corwin, it’s not just weregild she’s after.”

He shrugged. “She’s my mother.”

I thought about telling him to find somewhere with a really big time differential in his favor and spend some decades away from his mother. After doing that myself, I’d felt a lot less like keeping my mother happy was my first priority.

It had been very freeing.

Instead, I said, “I don’t think you’d last long if you attacked directly. Also, I like Random.”

Random wasn’t my actual sticking point, but starting with him made it easier to keep the people I wouldn’t budge on completely off the table. Aunt Flora would be easy. Martin… was too close to Random. 

I wouldn’t trade Martin for Luke. Up until ten minutes before, I wouldn’t have traded Luke for Martin. My feelings on the subject, going forward, were going to depend a hell of a lot on how many other lies Luke was telling me.

Not really giving a damn about most of my uncles was very freeing, too.

Luke started laughing again.

I shook my head. “What the hell were you going to do if I tried to gut you?” I wouldn’t have. If I wanted him dead, I’d have used magic, probably something explosive combined with using the Logrus as an exit. He might well survive that, but it would give me time to manage something better.

Shapeshifting would be better than magic for close quarters. Luke probably wouldn’t expect it. But I was kind of crap at shifting. It had been too long since I needed to, and circumstances really didn’t give me a lot of space to practice.

I wondered how much Luke knew about my abilities. I wondered which of them he could answer. Shapeshifting aside, we were equals physically.

None of it mattered, not then, because I wasn’t going to attack unless he did.

“I have an exit strategy,” he said when he finally stopped laughing.

“Right. I want stronger alcohol. Should I get it, or do you want to?” I wanted to give him a chance to walk before we got to anything we might actually murder each other over.

The look he gave me told me that he understood that part. He held out his hand for my stein, and I passed it over.

Luke’s absence gave me time to think about my priorities and about what the people I loved might do to each other and how I might avoid it. By the time he came back with a couple of bottles of Stoli, I had my Trumps spread on the mattress.

“I wasn’t completely sure you’d come back,” I told him. “It’s kind of a stupid gamble.”

He gave me a crooked grin. “I wasn’t absolutely sure you’d be here when I got back.” He passed me an unopened bottle. “And… I thought a lot about whether or not to tell you. I’d rather not be your enemy.”

I shrugged. “What do you know about the family?”

He sat beside me and studied the Trumps. “I know who most of those people are.”

I’d kept the people who weren’t known blood of Amber off to one side. Once I knew he was looking, I moved Mother, Jurt, and Despil over. “If you touch any of these, you’re a damned fool. Not because of me but because of House Sawall. I’m fair game on that side, but nobody else is, not unless you’ve got allies in the Courts.”

Luke shook his head. “Mother’s afraid of the Courts.” His eyes lingered on my mother’s Trump. “She introduced my parents,” he said softly.

That must have been before my time. “Then your mother must know that mine’s a vindictive bitch. She takes great pride in being that way. She’s angry at me right now, but she… probably wouldn’t take my murder very well.”

Luke opened one of the bottles and knocked some of it back. “I’m not actually sure my mother has a plan for what to do when things go bad.”

I was pretty sure that Luke didn’t either, but it was some relief to realize that he understood that things would inevitably go bad. “If you kill most of your father’s kin, forces from the Courts will pull you down and devour you to the last splinter of bone. One person with Pattern-- even two or three-- will still go down with enough Logrus users coming at them. Especially if those Logrus users are willing to die.” I hoped that Luke would understand why he might reasonably have common cause with some of our mutual relatives. If he didn’t…

If he didn’t, there might be no hope that I wouldn’t have to betray him.

I opened my own bottle and used the Stoli to wash the taste of that truth out of my mouth. “Oberon’s children aren’t even managing replacement levels for reproduction. People in the Courts aren’t seeing that right now, but I think that someone will.” 

Mother probably did see it, but exploiting it, even revealing it, might lessen her status. No one was going to let her and her children replace Oberon’s in controlling the Pattern.

Mandor… Well, who the hell knew with Mandor?

“The people who can die now without bringing Amber down entirely, without destroying the Pattern...” I shifted Trumps again. Benedict, Fiona, and Random went off to one side. “Not them. Not unless you really want everything coming down.” I hadn’t bothered putting Dworkin out at all. I moved Martin, Flora, and Llewella into another pile. “Not these, either. There’s no point.”

He might fight me on Martin if he thought about Martin’s survival as the first failure in Brand’s scheming.

I lifted my Trump of Corwin. “No one knows where he is, and this time, it’s not that no one’s looking.” I set that Trump aside, too. “Right now, you can have _one_ of these four if you can figure out how to make it happen.” I lined up the Trumps for Bleys, Gerard, Julian, and Caine.

He scowled at me. “I really just want Caine.”

No surprise. “Dead or dead with people knowing you made it happen?” The latter choice would tell me that Luke still didn’t know what he was doing. The former… could be in my interests, too. I studied Luke’s face and met his eyes when he returned the scrutiny.

“Mother wants you all to somehow be dead in a way that still lets us rub it in.”

I wondered if, in order to keep Luke alive, I was going to have to find a way to remove his mother from the equation. I definitely didn’t let any trace of that into my face or my posture. I was completely certain that, if I ever had to kidnap or murder his mother, it would be a secret I’d have to keep from him forever.

Luke sighed and shook his head.

I actually felt him letting go of his mother’s goal as a thing that could happen. I didn’t acknowledge it because I thought he might prefer not. “What you’re really looking at,” I said instead, “is a long game. A very, very long game. As long as people in the Courts waited for a way into Amber. Otherwise, you might as well put a bullet in your head and be done with it.”

He made an unhappy noise that wasn’t actually disagreement.

At least there was that. A long game increased the odds that I could find a way to keep Luke and Martin both alive and happy. A long game meant Luke getting to know the family. A long game meant Luke’s mother might die of age before I had to do anything about her.

A long game kicked the biggest problems a hell of a long way down the road. Especially a long game that started with Caine dying.


End file.
